Today in Awful Military Strategy: The Submarine Cigarette Ban

April 9, 2010

Did you wake up concerned for your countrymen? Well, you should be, now. Picture this: You’re sitting around hundreds of feet below the surface, in a billion-dollar phallic iron shark, armed with the kind of weaponry that could tear a chunk off of Africa’s western seaboard, let alone leave Nemo and family with fucked up gimp-fins for generations to come. You are, quite literally, under pressure. And literally, tons of it. What is the single worst thing you could be denied?

Cigarettes.

Yes, cigarettes.

If you are the kind of person who smokes — and I imagine on submarines, there are many of those, because you are sitting at screens watching beeps and bloops go off for hours on end, like a video poker machine where throwing away at wild deuce could possibly result in the end of Western Civilization As We Know It — there is no cigarette worse than the one you’ve been denied. Which the U.S. Military has just done.

The U.S. Navy [announced] that smoking will no longer be permitted below decks on its submarines effective December 31. “This policy was initiated for the health of the sailors who choose not to smoke,” said Lt. Commander Mark Jones, spokesman for the Commander Naval Submarine Forces in Norfolk, Virginia. “It is unfair for them to be exposed to the unhealthy side effects of secondhand smoke.”

Sure, it’s totes unfair that the other sailors in the Navy have to be exposed to some nasty secondhand. On the other hand, it’s totes unfair that the government just put our country at risk by making the “estimated 35 to 40 percent of active duty submarine sailors” who smoke that much more agitated. Because, honestly, the guy with his finger on the big red button: he needs that cigarette. He needs that cigarette. Western Civilization needs that cigarette. Considering — and this is a casual estimate, but — most bloggers can’t function without a substantial mainline of nicotine to their faces, what of the men who control nuclear weapons hundreds of feet below the ground? And it’s not like you face epically bad shit like this on a daily basis. You have no idea the pressure these guys are under.

This is reckless, and dangerous. At least give them those electronic cigarettes, or dip, or something. Honestly, if you want to end the world as we know it, at this point, all you need to do is:

1. Infiltrate the military.2. Get in the Navy.3. Work your way up the ladder.4. Get into a position of power.5. Proceed to ban, in the following order: coffee, masturbation, and drinking.

Done. Hopefully, it won’t come to that, because the true patriots among us will see the inherent value in smoking and coffee and masturbation and drinking, and allow our seamen to continue as they were. Until then, this one goes out to them.